I flew Frontier 851 from DEN-PHX today, and while I didn't notice during the flight, at the baggage claim, there were several members of the Colorado Avalanche picking up a lot of luggage including heavy equipment, hockey sticks, and so forth (making my bag so late I almost missed my bus home). Why didn't they charter a plane instead? Is the traveling contingent for an NHL team pretty small or something?

Yes..... Last week or so the Chicago Blakhawks arrived in BNA in a United 737-500.... and the Nashville Predators use Midwest Airlines. Who gets first use on the Detroit plane this week...???? The Tigers or the Red Wings....???

They usually do charter. Canadian NHL teams charter Air Canada 'Jetz'. This is a division of AC, providing charters for sports teams, using an A-320, configured with an all business class cabin. Your Frontier flight may not have carried the whole Avalanche team, just a few players being airlifted to a game in PHX. A full complement would be about 40, including team officials and journalists.

When i was 17 years old I used to play for the Swiss U18 ice hockey national team, we went to a tournament in Montreal with the whole team on LX, that was such a mess. We sure payed lots for overweight baggage

Quoting BA84 (Reply 2):Your Frontier flight may not have carried the whole Avalanche team, just a few players being airlifted to a game in PHX. A full complement would be about 40, including team officials and journalists.

Yeah, I'd say this flight had about 15-20 people associated with the team. By the way, they travel wearing suit coats and stuff so I think their organization makes them dress up when they fly. But they stopped short of ties.

They weren't flying for a game, apparently. According to their schedule, they don't play the Coyotes soon, so they must have been in PHX for some other reason. And from what I could tell, their bags had both DEN and PHX on the tags, so they were probably coming from somewhere else and just traveling through DEN due to their agreements with F9. Probably Montreal where they played last night, although F9 doesn't fly there, so they probably were on some other airline. All I see on FlightAware is an Air Canada flight that got in after my flight left, and a Pace B733, which departed late last night and was probably what they flew. And apparently a few of the team continued on to PHX with some of the equipment, which must have spent the night at DEN since the Pace flight got in at 1:50 in the morning, and the Frontier flight wasn't until 8:25 AM.

A few years back, when the Islanders were having owner issues, They did not have chartered flights and actually flew Southwest for most of the games. They used to bribe people waiting on line with autographs in order to get the better seats on the aircraft and to get on sooner.

I know that the Atlanta Thrashers are one of several teams that use Midwest Airlines for their charters (the St. Louis Blues are another). Pace Airlines does quite a few charter for NHL teams as well. Many NHL teams charter from charter airlines like Pace, Miami Air International and Ryan International. I know the Florida Panthers use Miami Air Int'l, as this season I've seen the following a/c parked @ ATL:

The Phoenix Coyotes (last place of course, along with the Cardinals, and Diamondbacks must be something in the air in Phoenix) uses Sportsjet it either a 734 or 757 depending on what is available. Suns and Diamondbacks also uses this carrier. Several other teams also have started to use them when they are available. The crews are provided by Pace hence a Pace flight number. For details on the aircraft go to flypace.com and check out the two Phoenix based aircraft.

Quoting EMBQA (Reply 1):Who gets first use on the Detroit plane this week...???? The Tigers or the Red Wings....???

Quoting Tys777 (Reply 13):The Tiger's have been using a NW 757 during the playoffs allowing the Red Wings to continue use of "Red Wing 1" as it's called

Based on the schedule, the Red Wings are back at home and playing Wednesday. The Red Wings next road game is Friday at Dallas. Barring a weather issue in the 'Lou, the Tigers could use the plane playing Tue-Thur on the road.